


Like Heavy Handed Symbolism

by prodigalDaughter



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Assisted Suicide, I guess I should also tag this, I miss that, I'm also a little attached to the Land of Vodka and Regrets, Kissing, M/M, Other, and a knife, death to godtier, even though I love her canon Land too., not actually particularly graphic violence but Dirk gets a little mouthy about it, remember when we thought Jake would prototype Jade's ashes?, though the fact that it's for godtier messes with that a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prodigalDaughter/pseuds/prodigalDaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake and Dirk find the former's quest bed, and all he has to do now is to die on it. Which is actually pretty hard to do, and almost harder to watch. Originally written for the meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Heavy Handed Symbolism

It's more like a funeral slab than a bed, really, which is both appropriate and flat out motherfucking unsettling. You guess the pale gold stone could have been worse, could have been some other unnatural colour like the dark magenta that yours apparently is somewhere, but there's still something in the consistency that reminds you this is no kind of rock that existed on Earth. A game constructed material, which Jake now intends to die on. 

He's playing with one of his guns in its holster, sitting on the edge of the slab. From what you know of him, you're sure he's trying very hard to think about this like a movie, like he's watching it from the outside as the hero and his sacrifice, but you're on the outside and it isn't pretty from here either. It's pointless. And also sort of infuriatingly trite. 

"It could not count; wouldn't be the first time this game decided to pull some astoundingly underhanded shit. This could rob us of a player, Jake, and not just any player-- you. We know where the damn thing is now, why don't we wait until you've had your arm ripped off by an ogre, or some similar calamity's gone down, and drag you back here to bleed out? It worked for Jane."

"It's going to work."

" _You don't know that._ " He's pissing you off now, though not in a way that makes you want to do anything worse than grab him and kiss him until he's given up on his suicide plan.

"I asked Grandma," he spits out, "both of her, young and prototyped, and they said the same. Ask your thrice-damned glasses if you don't believe me, he's a sprite now too, he'll know. It'll _work_ , blast it, and I don't appreciate being undermined. It's a bit more difficult to face death with you taking the piss at every turn, so why don't you just go and let me get it the bloody hell over with?"

You sigh and turn from him. His hand's tightened on the grip of his gun. "I won't leave you."

It's a long moment before he mumbles his thanks, and you let yourself look at him again.

He lies back, straightens his jacket, tries to settle his head on the hard stone. You watch him breathe, heavy, deliberately slow, trembling. He's almost vibrating, though he'd not be best pleased to admit it, staring into the greygreen sky of his thick, jungle-like Land. It was never fair, you thought, that his land was so similar to his home. The world was dead, and he was practically still trapped on Hellmurder Island. If a kid got anything out of the apocalypse, it should at least be a change of scenery, a chance to grow out of whatever he'd already had. But maybe Jake didn't need to. Maybe he was completely fucking perfect already, even lying on a bed of stone, the painted wings high enough on the slab that they spread out from his shoulders like very heavy-handed symbolism. He'll make a good god.

You sit on the edge of the stone where he was a moment before-- it's still warm-- and put your hand over his, welcoming it when he turns his hand over to lace your fingers together. He takes his gun from his holster and squeezes it in almost the same way as he's clasping onto you, for comfort and in faith. One-handed, he checks that it's loaded, cocks it, presses it to his temple. His eyes flutter closed and dear god he's shuddering and he swallows and you drop his hand to wrench the gun away from his head in a moment of panic. His eyes snap open as the gun goes off, somewhere into the distance, and he swears, loud and vile, glaring as if you'd betrayed him. When he manages coherent speech, it's to splutter that he nearly made it, damn it all, why did you stop him, why did you--

"You're shaking like a goddamn leaf under gale-force winds, Jake. Pull that trigger in your condition, for all we know you're going to miss and blast out your sinuses instead of your brain. Botched suicides are the number one thing to never, under pain of death, image search, followed by harlequin babies. I'm not letting you shoot yourself to bits. Fuck if I have the faintest idea how much that hurts, but neither do you, and I'm not letting you find out."

"I'm a bit out of options, here!"

"Drop the gun, Jake."

He does, and as it clatters to the ground you feel like you can breathe for the first time since you crested the mountain and saw the bed. Maybe he's not going to die, this bastard of an overenthusiastic, perfect beloved won't die, you won't let him-- but he has to, and the thought of it takes your breath away from you again as fast as it had returned. He scrubs his hands through his hair, drops his head back to the stone again, gasps for air. At least you're not the only one.

The inevitability occurs to you both at about the same time, and when he asks you to kill him you can only swallow and nod. 

You crawl over him, knees on either side of his body, and you try to fill your mind up with practicality to leave no room for sentiment. You can't fetch his gun; you don't really know how to use it beyond point-and-pull and you refuse to leave that much up to chance. You draw a long knife from your portfolio-- it's the only weapon of its abstratus you own, as you keep daggerkind purely because it seems appropriate that you should be able to use the thing you're named for. Though it's barely longer than your hand, it feels heavier than any of your swords, perhaps because it's old and cast-iron or perhaps because you're about to take a human life with it. Placing the point over his heart-- it's further in towards the breastbone than most people think, but you've always been pleased by the concept of placing the inner workings of your robots where their human analogues would be, so you know-- you look up at him, and the angle of his face is so familiar.

The last time you looked up at him like this was in the Land of Vodka and Regrets, when his eyes twisted shut for a reason very different from fear, worrying first that Roxy would return and find you and then worrying about nothing at all. It seems cruel that you should have to think of that now, but you realise you're over him in exactly the same way, hovering over his body. You shouldn't have to do this. 

This is not something that should be asked of someone your age, but you've never cared too much about being your age. You knew that growing up alone should have wrecked you, but you carried on, never considering that this was what being wrecked felt like. You knew that the assassinations that surrounded the world of your theoretical brother should have terrified you, but you refused to think of them as anything but business as usual. Of course the world was fucked up, that was the way the world always was. Of course you had to take care of yourself; you always had. Anyone who thought that was odd or wrong obviously needed taking care of too, so you did that. You took care of all of them, and if you can just pretend that's what you're doing now, you'll be all right.

You're almost sixteen years old and the closest thing you ever had to family is long dead, before you ever met him. You're almost sixteen years old, and the first time anyone ever told you to your face that you were loved was today. You're almost sixteen years old, and the world has ended. You're almost sixteen years old, and you gave your virginity to the boy you know you're going to love for the rest of any and every life you might have, no matter how miserably short of a time that might be, rocking one two three into your joined hands and curling your body over his like he was the earth and you were the sky.

You're almost sixteen years old, and you are about to murder that lover.

He's waiting for you, and you can feel his heart pounding out of time with yours, so you kiss him because it's the only thing you can think to do. His breath shivers out of him against your lips, and you kiss him and you kiss him because this isn't what he deserves. He shouldn't die afraid and shaking, and it's your job to prevent that. Anyone would be scared of death, or at least should, but some platitudinous ass said that real bravery is being scared but carrying on anyway, and right now you believe him. Still, though, you don't want to think of him afraid. You don't want to think of him waiting for death, you want him close. You want him against you again, you want this damn game to be over and done with, you want him safe, you want to kiss him, and only one of those things is within your power so you do. You kiss Jake until his eyes open, and you can see them pleading through your lashes so you let him take off your shades, fold them, set them next to his head on the stone. 

You blink in the light and he kisses you, this time, lifting his head to press his lips against yours, eyes open and holding his breath. You look at him, dizzy though you are with proximity and his beauty and your own special brand of righteous fury, waiting until all you see in his eyes is the same memory that arrested you earlier, the thought of how it feels to be so close to you, the wanting to stay that way and never have to worry about anything except you.

In the moment that you are overtaken with the fact that he loves you back, you put all your force behind the dagger and shove it down, between his ribs, through his heart. 

He chokes. Half an inch from his face, you watch his eyelids go slack, feel his breath stop against your lips. You smell blood, heavy and sharp, and somehow it's not the same as when it's just your own. His body becomes limp in a thousand little ways, no longer straining to yours, no longer capable. You aren't sure how long you are still.

The knife, you tug from his yielding flesh and throw aside, listening dimly to its clatter against the stones. Slowly you unfold your body. His blood is soaking through his shirt and pooling below him on the bed, obliterating the white wings. It's on your hands. It's on your glasses, but you don't wipe them clean before putting them back on. You sit, and you don't move from his side.

Some kind of jungle flies are assembling, swarms of them heading up the mountain. You aren't supposed to be here, with him, but you want to spite the flies. He should have had something better than flies. You wonder if, when you take your sword through your own gut, you'll be surrounded by those goddamn gulls.

Jake's probably waking up now, somewhere on Prospit, but it's not as though you're welcome anywhere that near to Skaia's light. His eyes will be opening there, brand new clothes and brand new body and brand new life, and you need to leave him to it. His body behind you, his blood covering your hands and your forearms and dripping down your cheeks, they don't mean anything. They don't. He's alive, and you know that. This wasn't even a death, it wasn't. It wasn't. Just a stepping stone.

You'll prove it, though to whom you're not sure. You'll go do it yourself.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for this prompt on the meme: http://homesmut.livejournal.com/15023.html?thread=28889519#t28889519


End file.
